Part 17

Towards the close of a summer’s evening, one’s fancy sees nothing here but visions and spectres. You will descend, in spite of your reason, with Madame Radcliffe, into the subterranean chambers of the convent, and into the solitary prisons, where you will see poor Elena and her iron table, her dead lantern, her black bread, her cruche of water, and her crucifix; and you will see the wretch Schedoni bare the bosom of the sleeping maid, hanging over the dagger. It is his own miniature!--his own daughter! And then you will walk through the long row of silent monks and smoky tapers, in the funeral of a broken-hearted sister, the sullen bell of the chapel giving news that a soul has fled.

The evening was still and solemn; and the sun just descending on your side of the globe; and lured by the novelty of the place, I travelled slowly onwards through a narrow lane to the Faubourg St. Marceau.

This street is different from all that I have seen in Paris; it is perhaps different from anything that is to be seen upon the earth. The houses are so immensely high that not a ray even in the brightest mid-day reaches the pavement, which is covered with a slimy mud. The darkened and grated windows give to the houses, the look of so many prisons. A chilling damp and horrid gloom invest you around; you feel stifled for want of air. Now and then, the whine of a dog, or the wailing of a beggar, interrupts the silence, and sometimes a sister of charity, wrapped in her hood and mantle, passes quick from one house to another. I went out of this street willingly, as it was growing more horrible by the coming night, into the purer atmosphere of the Seine. And thus ended my adventures for the day.

END OF VOL. I.

T. C. Savill, Printer, 107, St. Martin’s Lane.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] We learn from tradition that Julian never washed hands or face, or suffered any kind of ablution, unless, perhaps, at his christening. In a word, he was a very dirty emperor. Is it not strange that his “Baths” should be the only monument remaining of him in Paris? I presume they are named ironically, or from the old rule of _non lavando_.

[2] Louis, by a royal edict, ordered that no other building should be constructed in Paris until this work was completed, under a penalty of imprisonment and ten thousand francs fine. It was something in those days to be a king. One has now to ask the Deputies everything, even to gilding the ceilings of the Madelaine.

[3] It is called also the Place de la Concord, and the Place Louis XV.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

Swiming-schools=> Swimming-schools {pg vii}

Your old acqaintance=> Your old acquaintance {pg 28}

These splended cafés=> These splendid cafés {pg 63}

and it wont do to have=> and it won’t do to have {pg 95}

Sparticus who had stepped=> Spartacus who had stepped {pg 143}

je sais que le rôti à manqué a deux tables!=> je sais que le rôti a manqué à deux tables! {pg 184}

retain our demoracy=> retain our democracy {pg 208}

with Pharoah=> with Pharaoh {pg 244}